STYLE

STYLE; The Brothers Huvane

By William Norwich

Published: October 13, 2002

It was just one of those typical fashion conversations: lots of rhyme, not much reason. I was talking to myself.

In such perilous company, I was conducting a random, and unscientific, survey concerning the disparities between the sexes in the ways of style. New York's recent fashion week was afoot. Waiting for Calvin Klein's particularly fine spring collection to begin, I began to make a mental list -- C.Z. Guest was across the runway with her daughter, Cornelia -- of the many mother-daughter and sister acts among fashion's enduring icons.

There are the Cushing sisters; the Bouviers, Lee and Jacqueline; assorted Mitfords; Gloria and Thelma Morgan; the Langhornes of Virginia; and Carolina Herrera and her daughters, Carolina Jr. and Patricia, as well as the Miller sisters, to name just a few in the fashion sorority. But where, I wondered, is the equivalent fraternity? Where are the men?

The Culkins? No. Ralph Lauren and his sons, Andrew and David? Sure. Prince Charles and Prince William and Prince Harry? Time will tell. The Rolling Stones weren't brothers. The Beatles weren't brothers. Even the Blues Brothers weren't brothers. Puff Daddy harbors dynastic promise but is still an island in progress, with a wardrobe as big as a peninsula. The Marx Brothers? Well, Groucho liked to talk about style. ''Of course my mustache is real,'' he once famously quipped. ''It belongs to my maid.''

The cause for this fashion imbalance is obvious, I trust. Historically speaking, dandies do not breed. But then the fashion designer and stylist Tony Melillo proposed for membership in the style fraternity five brothers from Yonkers; yes, Yonkers: Michael, Kevin, Stephen, Robert and Christopher Huvane. And why not? Kevin, managing partner of the ultrapowerful talent shop Creative Artists Agency, and Stephen, a partner in the public relations firm PMKHBH, are known for cutting handsome swaths through Hollywood and New York, as well as any city of their choosing. Michael, a marketing executive, Robert, who works in computers, and Christopher, an actor and the youngest by 10 years, are no slouches in styleland, either.

''My mother knew how to stretch a dollar, and everyone had their own style from the earliest age,'' says the Huvanes' firstborn and only daughter, Denise Whalen, a computer executive. ''But it was also a matter of hand-me-downs. Then it didn't matter if it was your style or not.''

Sifting through the family photographs at her father's apartment in Manhattan (her mother, Genevieve, died in 2000), Denise remembered the uniforms her brothers wore to Catholic school, and she recalled their prom nights, their concern with picking the right color ruffled shirt to match their dates' dresses.

''But what I remember most vividly were the days when my mother wasn't feeling well, and as the oldest, getting the boys off to school. Combing their hair.'' She laughs. ''Remember when hair blowers came on the scene? Michael was the first one in our family to have one.''

The Huvanes are a tribe with good hair.

Denise describes a tight-knit family where style grew out of substance. Martin Huvane worked days at the Transit Authority, nights for Encyclopaedia Britannica. And for several years, he also owned a deli on Gunhill Road, where the kids worked on weekends. Home was a comfortable apartment with one bathroom near the Grand Concourse, until Genevieve became pregnant with Christopher and the Huvanes moved to a house on a quiet cul-de-sac in Yonkers. By then, the doting parents were also defenders of their sons' freedom of expression. In the 60's, a man's hair was regarded as long if it touched his collar, and long hair was considered by many an act of treason right up there with flag burning.

''I think my parents had a bit of a falling out at one point with their families because they allowed their sons to let their hair grow,'' Denise recalled.

Thanks to the Huvanes' big sister, the brothers were able to work their way through college with jobs, mostly as bellmen, at the Wyndham Hotel, where Denise was employed. ''Still wearing uniforms, like in Catholic school,'' Denise chuckles. When the author Cynthia Freeman met Kevin, who was then an assistant manager, she helped him get a mailroom job at William Morris. ''He took a big pay cut,'' Denise says, ''but he was born for it.''

Resting the photos on the coffee table, Denise shook her head. ''I don't know how my mother did it. How my parents both worked so hard to let us be individuals, with different political outlooks and lifestyles, but with common values and morals. When we moved to Yonkers, we had a dining room. We'd sit around talking for hours. One day a neighbor apologized to my mother, but she had to tell her how much she loved to look into our window and see us there.''

The house in Yonkers also had a second bathroom. How did such a stylish clan manage all those years with one loo? Cooperation?

''Survival!'' Denise corrects. ''To this day, I do not put my makeup on in the bathroom.''